Meet some of the new puppies looking to be adopted at the Edmonton Humane Society on February 22, 2010.
Photograph by: Ed Kaiser, edmontonjournal.com
Edmonton is for the dogs, which is good news for animal rescue groups that need help finding homeless pooches permanent homes.

A truck loaded with 22 medium and large breed puppies from the Winnipeg Humane Society arrived at the Edmonton Humane Society on Sunday. The pups will be put up for adoption as soon as they have the required medical and behaviour tests, society spokeswoman Shawna Randolph said Monday.

Winnipeg has had fewer adoptions recently and an inexplicable increase in the number of puppies being dropped off at the shelter, Winnipeg society executive director Bill McDonald said.

It is crucial for puppies, particularly those between two and five months old, to have a home environment with individual care and training to grow into stable dogs, he said.

McDonald asked the Edmonton society to help find homes for the pups because of its recent success at adopting out homeless dogs from California.

More than 90 per cent of the 112 small breed dogs flown by private jet to Edmonton from Fresco, Calf., last month have found homes.

And Edmonton is known as a family-oriented community that loves animals, McDonald said.

"We are so thankful that the Edmonton Humane Society is helping us give these dogs the proper start," he said. "It was a happy occasion to see these pups hit the road."

Randolph said the transfer of the puppies did not cost the humane society any donor money. It was all made possible with the generosity of Cochrane's Automotive Repair, a west-end Lexus dealership, and volunteers Sandy and Les Raubenheimer.

Cochrane serviced the Edmonton Humane Society truck for the 1,700-kilometre trip at no cost, while the Lexus dealership supplied $2,500 for gas. The Raubenheimers, who drove, covered their own expenses.

The couple left Edmonton on Thursday and arrived in Winnipeg on Saturday, where they loaded up the puppies. They stayed overnight in Saskatoon, with the pups housed by the SPCA. They arrived back in Edmonton on Sunday.

Randolph said the Edmonton society will help other humane organizations and animal rescue groups whenever it can, because that is its mandate. "We haven't been able to help all the time. But we always say to check back in a little while."

The society plans to help out the Humane Rescue Animal Team of northern Alberta by taking 13 homeless dogs off its hands in a couple of weeks, she said.

It will continue to help with the California Canine Cuties program to encourage Edmontonians looking for small breed dogs to turn to them first.

Few people realize that many dogs offered for sale in newspapers, online and in pet stores come from puppy mills, where they often live in horrible conditions and are bred with little thought to the dogs' welfare, Randolph said.

Most of the Winnipeg puppies, which include a couple of St. Bernard mixes, Lab and retriever mixes, border collie and collie mixes as well as German shepherd mixes, have been spayed or neutered. The few that still require surgery will have their operations done by the society, she said.